


Ask Me If I Love You

by QuoteMyFoot



Series: Word Prompts for Three Houses [6]
Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Fluff, Love Confessions, Mutual Pining, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-07
Updated: 2019-11-07
Packaged: 2021-01-25 04:14:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21350059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuoteMyFoot/pseuds/QuoteMyFoot
Summary: Mercedes was frustrated to find herself falling for Lorenz when she knows he'll wish to marry a noble lady... but maybe her case isn't as hopeless as she thinks.
Relationships: Lorenz Hellman Gloucester/Mercedes von Martritz
Series: Word Prompts for Three Houses [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1535843
Comments: 8
Kudos: 40





	Ask Me If I Love You

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the November daily prompts on r/FanFiction. **November 6 (“We need a word for…” Wednesday): _Backpfeifengesicht,_ German – a face in need of a slap.**
> 
> Naturally the first person I thought of was Lorenz... but no faces were slapped in the making of this fic. I got his paired ending with Mercedes at the end of my Golden Deer run, but the support chain is kind of weighted to his development and I always wondered about Mercedes's side of that romance. So... here you go! Set after their A support.

The goddess teaches perseverance, patience, and forgiveness, and Mercedes normally does her best to adhere to all of those directives. She feels it’s the least she can do, given all the kindness those who follow the goddess have shown her throughout her life.

Unfortunately, it appears that Lorenz Hellman Gloucester was put on this earth to test her.

She grits her teeth and manages to maintain something resembling a smile when Lorenz takes the seat opposite her in the dining hall. He’s smiling himself until he looks up and catches sight of her expression.

“Mercedes!” he says. “Are you quite well? You seem rather tense.”

…Perhaps her smile came out closer to a grimace than she intended. “I’m perfectly fine,” she answers shortly, trying not to invite conversation.

“Are you sure?” He frowns, reaching across the table as though to touch her forehead. When she jerks back, he blinks and snaps his hand back to his chest. He cradles it there, flexing his fingers delicately, as though testing they still work. “I…”

She tries to resolve herself to be angry with him, for his impertinence, for the assumed intimacy—oh, but if her stupid heart doesn’t soften at his obvious, open concern. She can’t help it if she gets flutters in her stomach at seeing his mortified expression, knowing that he was so overcome with his feelings that for a moment he forgot all of his precious noble propriety, the differences in their stations…

That’s the trouble. With Lorenz, it’s only ever ‘for a moment’. And his apology would be worse - ‘A noble should never impose their will upon commoners, who have little recourse if they are ill done by, and may be afraid to speak out due to the ill behaviour of others’. What a thoughtful sentiment, demonstrating awareness of the power of his position and making an effort to be sensitive to the feelings of commoners, something most nobles give no consideration to.

What a _noble _sentiment. Because he is a noble and she is a commoner, always, and he can never help but remind her. It’s cruel, isn’t it, that one of the reasons she’s come to most admire him is equally one of the reasons he’ll never look at her and just see ‘Mercedes’.

She sees the apology forming in his head – he chooses his words with more care these days, another thing she’s come to notice – and she knows what will follow when he parts his lips.

_Lorenz, just—stop!_

She pushes herself away from the table, mumbling an excuse to leave. She has no idea what she says.

Lorenz startles and also begins to rise out of his seat. “Mercedes?”

“Excuse me,” she repeats with a numb tongue.

She hurries away as fast as she can without drawing too much attention to herself, keeping his chin high so that none might see the tears forming in her eyes. How foolish she is, to get so worked up over such small things! That man. That… that damned _man!_

Mercedes passes into the near-empty gardens, and under less scrutiny, she feels her nerve weaken and her shoulders slump. It is not Lorenz’s fault and she does him a disservice to talk so, even only inside her own head. Lorenz has always been clear and honest about his intentions, his plans for the future—too much so, some might say. Mercedes ought to be relieved that he’s grown enough to consider her a dear friend, whilst leaving her no room to doubt and wonder if he means more…

When she first met him, she felt him pompous, prejudiced, and rude. The impression lessened significantly as she came to know him after joining the Golden Deer house, and eventually, she came to accept that his intentions were good, and he would make a real difference in the lives of his subjects – even if she still personally found him rather abrasive.

During the five years of war when they were separated, something… changed. He matured, she supposed, softened his manners—learned an ounce of tact, even if he is still not precisely delicate with his words. For once, he could look her in the eye and talk with her like a friend, and Mercedes found she rather liked it. He wasn’t kind, exactly; he was a _good_ man,but too blunt to be really kindly. He was courteous and occasionally witty and always sincere, elegantly spoken and capable of surprising feeling, but for all of that, she couldn’t quite place what made her like him so…

Until she thought of the people of the church who had done their utmost to protect her and her mother, resisting bribes and threats until the matter was forcibly taken out of their hands, simply because it was the right thing to do. Lorenz’s station was very different, but in a way he was the same: because of the position he was born into, he’d dedicated himself to fulfilling every duty of a nobleman towards his people, even to the point of self-sacrifice. He pursued only suitable interests, he trained himself harshly as a knight, he said he couldn’t marry for selfish reasons, he would never marry—

—_he would never marry her._

That’s when she realised.

Mercedes wipes the tears from her cheeks, realising her feet have carried her to the cathedral. It’s not surprising, really. Even in this state of disrepair, the cathedral still brings her comfort. She can feel the goddess’s presence there, in the murmurings of her servants and the echoes of a thousand years of prayers in the sacred space.

She feels a weight lift from her shoulders as she crosses the threshold. Mercedes breathes deep, letting the sense of peace fill her as she walks to stand before the goddess’s image—or what is left of it. The cathedral has had infrequent visitors of late anyway, and with dinner ongoing, she finds herself blessedly alone.

_Goddess, hear my prayer…_

It is not so much a prayer as an outpouring of her feelings. She’s frustrated with herself, getting entangled in such feelings when she knows nothing will come of it, even if they were reciprocated. She finds herself frustrated with Lorenz, too; he is constantly trampling all over sensitive points without meaning to. The incorrigibly tactless man had even pestered her to know whether he ought to be ‘more flexible’ in his pursuit of a wife… as long as she bore a Crest and might have some connections to the nobility, of course!

_Oh, it’s like he just doesn’t hear himself sometimes! That is just a noble by any other name!_

And how much plainer could he make it that Mercedes was not up for consideration, if he thought her a safe woman to discuss his marriage prospects with? His tactlessness will no doubt endear some capable and equally well-intentioned – though for both their sakes, hopefully more diplomatic – noble woman to him some day, but right then… oh, it was like he’d taken a dagger directly to Mercedes’s heart, whilst having not the slightest hint of having done so. If she were not so devout a follower of the goddess, she would cheerfully have strangled him.

She sighs. Her head is in such a swirl. _Thank you, goddess, for listening to me. I pray for guidance and forbearing… and I pray for Lorenz’s health and success. Please see him safely through his war, so that he might…_

“Mercedes!” Lorenz’s voice echoes through the grand space.

All thoughts flee her except a repeating memory of her abrupt exit from her dining hall. Her cheeks start to burn. _Goddess, I have embarrassed myself… what must he think of me?_

But there is only softness in his smile when she reluctantly turns to greet him. “I thought I would find you here,” he says, pleased with himself. “I… I seem to have offended you somehow, and so, I must apologise.”

Mercedes’s heart sinks. The very apology she’d come here to escape. She can’t prevent her voice from choking when she says, “Please, save your apologies. There is no need.”

Of course he notices. He takes her hands. He feels startlingly warm as he runs his thumb across the back of her hand. Her breath catches in her throat.

“You’ve been crying,” he says, and then, with even greater alarm: “What has happened? Are you hurt? Did someone upset you? Did I—” His voice cracks. “Did _I _upset you?”

She can only bow her head. Her heart pounds in her ears so loudly that she can barely hear herself think, not that she can string two thoughts together when she’s so distracted by her hands in his, the pad of his thumb tracing a line back and forth over her skin.

She takes a deep breath and slowly, _slowly, _forces herself to push his hands towards his chest. “Lorenz,” she manages, her voice barely above a whisper, “for my own sake, I have to ask you to stop this.”

“Stop…?” Lorenz looks at his hands blankly, and she cringes at his desolate expression when he clenches them. “You’re… right, of course. I have acted… improperly. It is unbecoming of a noble to be so—”

“Of a _noble!_” she snaps, making him gape at her, the words pouring out of her like they’ve been ripped directly from her lips. “Yes, you’ve always been acting the part of a noble_,_ Lorenz. A commoner like me could _never _enrich your house, as you’ve made abundantly clear time and time again, so I would thank you if you would leave me to get over these feelings in peace!”

“Feelings…?” Lorenz repeats, quite lost. “Mercedes—you…?”

If she weren’t in so much pain, she would feel sorry for him, but right then, she hasn’t the room inside her. “Yes, I love you,” she says, not as angry as she meant; in fact, she finds herself on the verge of crying again, making her voice embarrassingly high pitched and feeble. “I have done for some time, but I know you won’t—” Her voice starts to break. “—so if you would kindly—”

“_Mercedes.”_

Caught off guard by the intensity of his voice, she stops, and finds herself swept up in him; his hand cradling her cheek, another around her waist, pulling her close. His hair falls over her, tickling her ear, and she’s suddenly overwhelmed by the scent of roses and the wetness in his eyes, but she can’t look away. For a moment, she is quite breathless.

“I have given you the gravest insult—” His voice is raw and trembling with the weight of something unsaid. “—for leading you to believe for even one second that I—that _you—_that you would bring anything other than unending joy, and kindness, and sense, and… and more than it is possible to say, to any man who was lucky enough to have your affections. They could be a commoner or a king; it would make no difference. Mercedes, you are, without any doubt, the best woman I have had the fortune of meeting, and I—”

“Lorenz,” she says, soft.

He stops. Gently, she reaches out to cup his face, watching in wonderment as he leans into her touch, his breath hitching. He leans further into her, pressing their bodies together. It’s like the goddess herself has reached out and swept all her sadness away, leaving her exhausted and her fingers trembling. But it’s all overborne by a warmth rising inside her, filling her with such happiness that she can barely comprehend it, let alone speak it.

He doesn’t have to say the words.

“But then why?” she asks. “Why did you ask all those questions about… if you wife should be this or…?”

“I was thinking of _you, _of course,” he replies. “I had no idea if you would even consider—I never meant for you to think…”

A laugh bubbles up from Mercedes’s lips. She can’t help it. He tried to gauge her feelings with such bluntness and lack of circumspection… she assumed that even he would’ve shown more delicacy than that if he was really asking after _her _feeling. Maybe he hasn’t learned as much tact as she thought. “Oh, you… you useless man!”

“Quite useless, when it comes to you,” he says wryly. “It was quite selfish of me—I’d long admired you, and I… I could not bear to let the possibility of courting you go, if there was a chance you would have me.”

“And the Crest and the noble bloodline?” she whispers. “It made no difference to you?”

“No,” he says, and she knows by the way his eyes soften that he must be telling the truth. “I only meant—if I married a commoner, my father might make things… difficult. I was thinking that if I told him you were…” He clears his throat. “Although, in retrospect, I understand why you might have… gotten a different impression.”

“We will have to work on your lack of tact,” Mercedes says. Later, she knows, he will infuriate her again with that habit of his – but right now, nothing could disturb her happiness. “But for that, we have the rest of our lives.”

“Once we’re married,” Lorenz agrees. The words seem to jolt him, and he blinks. Suddenly, he withdraws his hand from her cheek, leaving it feeling cold, and pulls away. “I shouldn’t have—it is not proper—”

Mercedes loops her fingers around the back of his neck, drawing him back to her, until they are face to face. “You haven’t asked me,” she whispers against his lips, “if I mind.”

“Oh.” His hands circle around her waist again, hesitant. “Mercedes, may I…?”

Mercedes could laugh again, but she kisses him instead.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still not very experienced in writing romance but I hope you enjoyed it! Any comments welcome! :)


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